GST rates: Govt starts media awareness drive for common man to prevent being fleeced by traders

New Delhi: The government has started its media blitzkrieg to tell the common man that the upcoming GST will reduce prices of most goods.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) in advertisements in leading dailies gave pictorial representations of items which are exempt from Goods and Services Tax and the ones which would attract lower tax of 5 percent.

The GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising his state counterparts, has already decided on tax rates of majority of the commodities. They have been put in slabs of 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent, with the exception of gold which will attract 3 percent GST.

GST, which will subsume 16 different levies, will be rolled out from 1 July.